Stanford beats UCLA 27-24 to win Pac-12 title

PALO ALTO
– Stanford’s final numbers paled in comparison to the gaudy statistics UCLA put up in a close-fought Pac-12 championship game Friday night at Stanford Stadium.

The Bruins finished with 461 offensive yards to Stanford’s 325. But in the end, all the numbers in the world didn’t matter.

With 34 seconds remaining, Bruins kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn sent a 52-yard field goal wide left, and Stanford walked off with a 27-24 victory and a bid to the Rose Bowl.

The victory gave the Cardinal (11-2, 8-1) a trip to their third-straight BCS Bowl game, and they will now meet the Big Ten champion in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.

"I'm very proud of my guys," said Stanford coach David Shaw. "These guys played extremely hard. We've talked about how we were going to get UCLA's best shot. They gave it to us.

"We knew it was going to come down to the end."

Stanford came into the game as the favorite, ranked No. 8 in the BCS, and fresh off a 35-17 win over the No. 16 Bruins last week.

But right from the beginning, UCLA put on a rushing show. Senior tailback Johnathan Franklin’s 51-yard opening drive touchdown set the tone, and he never let up.

The dynamic 5-foot-11, 195-pound back finished with 194 rushing yards on 19 carries. He added a second touchdown late in the game with a 20-yard scamper in the third quarter, and broke the Bruins’ single season rushing record.

“If you give that guy an inch, he’s going to take a mile. He took a couple of miles on us,” Shaw said.

However, Stanford can run too.

Senior running back Stepfan Taylor caught a short pass from quarterback Kevin Hogan on the opening drive and turned it into a 33-yard gain. Hogan showed moves of his own as he trotted into the end zone uncovered for a 1-yard touchdown to tie things up.

Both quarterback-running back tandems exchanged touchdowns in an entertaining first quarter replete with big plays. The first four scores of the game were rushing touchdowns.

Then, early in the second quarter, Stanford safety Ed Reynolds made one of the biggest plays of the night when he intercepted Hundley at Stanford's 19, and darted all the way to the opposite end zone – Hundley eventually tackled him at the 1.

Reynolds appeared to have scored, but the play was overturned upon review and he was ruled down at the 1. Ultimately, it didn’t make much of a difference as Taylor scored for Stanford on the next play. He would finish with 78 yards on 14 carries.

Defensively, that play flipped the momentum in the Cardinal’s favor.

Thereafter, for the first time in the game, Stanford’s defense held UCLA to back-to-back three-and-outs and went into halftime with a 17-14 lead, off a 37-yard Jordan Williamson field goal.

The second half was all about defense: UCLA’s D came out fired up and produced its own three-and-out to force a Stanford punt.